Raise your voice. Rebel. Make a change. Love. Have lots of good sex.

Antoine is a Lebanese guy who, for the past couple of years, was living his life as a transgender female called Tino.

But on February 26, Antoine took to his Facebook page to denounce transsexuality and publicly declare that with the help of religion, he is now a man.

In the post, Antoine mentions that he was sexually molested as a child, lost his father at four years old, and could never understand why he felt uncomfortable with his body. He underwent plastic surgery, let his hair grow, and “drowned in an illusion”.

But it all changed when Antoine met a woman who told him: “Only Jesus can save you and erase everything”. He started reading the Bible and realized that it was wrong to change his looks and become a woman. Now he’s a “reborn person” filled with happiness, thanks to Jesus.

That’s when people collectively lost their shit.

Straight people and gay people.

Christians and atheists.

2-year-olds and 74-year-olds who involuntarily lost their shit 5 minutes before reading Antoine’s testimony, voluntarily lost their shit after reading it.

Stephanie is crying so hard she might be the reason why Beirut streets clog up whenever it drizzles.

Ramy. Just. CAN’T.

Pamela has so much respect for Antoine that she hashtagged it.

David lost his shit. But he kept it short and sweet.

Joyce found the perfect answer to “Can I get an Amen?”

Amal can’t be tamed. She tells the Christian gays they shouldn’t fall in love with boys.

Then there’s Joy.

People lost their shit. And Antoine listened.

He thanked his supporters but also asked them to pray for gays, lesbians, freaks, and porn addicts.

But it’s not all love.

Yara doesn’t get it.

Translation: “He went from being a cocksucker with a wig to a cocksucker without a wig?”

The above picture is how I remember Antoine as “Tino”. I would be at Bardo and Bjork’s “Crystalline” song would come on… which only meant one thing. At any moment, “Tino” would jump on one of the tables with her sexy black mini dress and dance. And although that song is utterly horrible, I would look at her in amazement. It was inspiring how confident and free she was.

Back then, Tino would get hate from straight people and gay people. And today, as a he, he’s receiving hate from gay people. And maybe that’s the whole point.

But who knows?

Maybe Antoine is a woman who is repressing her true identity just to conform. Maybe Antoine really did find Jesus and now identifies as a man. Or maybe we should all just stop losing our shit whenever people choose a gender that’ll help them sleep better at night.

Why are they saying this person is trans? I don’t understand. I am guessing he just presented as a woman, but did not have the surgery, because it would be impossible to reverse and become a man again. This is all very odd.

A transsexual person is someone who transitions recognizably/physically from male to female or vice versa, whether by hormonal intake or by undergoing surgery.
A transgender person is born with a biological sexual appearance that does not conform with his/her identity, expression, behavior, or general sense of self. Sex is the biological anatomy of the body, gender is an internal sense of being male, female, or other.
Both are different and unrelated to sexual orientation, homosexuality is the emotional and sexual attraction to the same sex, while transgender people may be straight, bisexual, lesbian, gay, or asexual. So this is why Tino/Antoine is a transgender person who turned into a self-hating homophobe and in my personal opinion needs professional help by doctors and therapists, not by priests. Though in the end, whatever makes people happy should be accepted by everyone, as long as Tino/Antoine doesn’t harass and attack LGBTs the way he used to be attacked, and this is what’s most disturbing about all this, not the fact that he stopped his transition, it’s the fact that he became a bully and a bigot, and this shift is more disturbing than Geagea and Aoun becoming allies.

I don’t know why everyone is hating on Antoine he realized he was living a lie by being the woman he isn’t. Being transgender is not a birth condition, a man with XY chromosomes cannot become a woman. If you read the research there is a high rate of suicide after sex reassignment surgery, because the surgery didn’t fix anything. People need to be affirmed in their birth gender instead of the, delusion that they are a different gender. Surgery and hormones won’t make someone a gender they are not, science hasn’t proven anything.